Abstract

Bluetooth is a newly proposed technology aimed to facilitate the realization of wireless personal networks or other short range networks using affordable Bluetooth chips with low power demand. The emergency of this technology has been getting very positive responses in both the industrial and the academic circles. This report is focused on the Bluetooth fundamentals and a review of some selected research articles dealing with the Bluetooth technology. We first present a brief but broad view about the technological evolutions from the birth of the early Internet, to wireless networks and to the emergency of Bluetooth technology. Following is a review of the Bluetooth core specifications and its profile specifications. The summaries of the core specifications give us a general impression and fundamental knowledge about the Bluetooth technology, the related terminology and the relationships among the different protocol layers. The summaries of the profile specifications give us the rules to follow to apply the technology into various applications. We then include a review of some research papers dealing with several aspects of scatternets using the Bluetooth technology. The selected papers give us indications about the potential problems or constraints in the implementation of the Bluetooth technology into applications, and the possible solutions or improvements to them. The last part is a short conclusion, where the significance of studying the Bluetooth technology, the perspectives of the applications of the technology, are addressed.